Re: [registrars] News: EFF joins Sex.com case

[Rick H Wesson <wessorh@ar.com>]

Paul,

and here is the blurb from the EFFector (EFF mail list)

-rick

...


NSI SCREWED UP SEX.COM DOMAIN DISPUTE

Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release

For Immediate Release: Wednesday, January 23, 2002

San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today asked an
appeals court to hold Network Solutions, Inc., (NSI) responsible for
mismanagement of the Sex.com domain name.

The case arises from NSI's actions in taking the Sex.com domain name
from appellant Gary Kremen and giving it to another Internet user who
presented NSI with fraudulent information.

In 2000, a lower court ruled that NSI, a private company which is the
sole domain name registry for dot-com domain names, is immune from
civil suit in cases where it negligently handled a domain name. Sex.com
then appealed to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and EFF filed an
amicus brief in the case.

"A court has ruled that NSI can screw up its monopoly on dot-com domain
name management and face no consequence for its actions," said EFF
Intellectual Property Attorney Robin Gross. "We hope the appellate
court will recognize the danger in eliminating all accountability for
this key component of Internet governance."

"I'm pleased that EFF, which has always been a clear voice on
cutting-edge Internet governance issues, supports the position that
domain registrars are custodians of valuable business properties and
have clear responsibilities to their customers," said San Francisco
businessman Gary Kremen, plaintiff in the suit. "Everyone reasonably
assumes the registrar will prevent poaching of domain names. It's time
the law backed that up."

VeriSign Inc. acquired NSI after the legal case was filed.

Links:

Documents related to Sex.com case:
  http://www.eff.org/IP/Internet_address_disputes/Kremen_v_NSI/




On Fri, 25 Jan 2002, Paul Stahura wrote:

> FYI
>
> http://news.com.com/2100-1023-823122.html
>
> "In it's brief, the EFF asked the court to hold VeriSign, which now owns the
> Net name registrar that transferred the Web address, responsible for the
> error"
>